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eldavojohn writes "In July, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) leveled the finger at Microsoft for a GPL violation but how often does this actually happen? Sunday, Brad M. Kuhn (tech director at the SFLC) stated in his blog that since August of 2009 he has been finding about one per day. So why is it that we have only covered a handful of these cases in the news? Brad offers sage wisdom; surprisingly, he recommends, 'Don't go public first. Back around late 1999, when I found my first GPL violation from scratch, I wanted to post it to every mailing list I could find and shame that company that failed to respect and cooperate with the software freedom community. I'm glad that I didn't do that, because I've since seen similar actions destroy the lines of communication with violators, and make resolution tougher.' Public shame is evidently not always the best answer. Ars has a few more details and notes that (in accordance with Brad's advice) lawsuits are usually a dead last resort."

open source project have violations too. Using someones patented ideas, calling a library that isn't GNU compatible. The program is performing a function that is illegal such as DRM disabling. That is why you need to be civil with dealing with people for violations. As chances are you have made a mistake and created a violation yourself.

Be civil and *document*. If it does come to court, your kind requests (in writing) to desist, as well as your flexibility in helping them identify and correct their violation will help make the case that you have taken the needed steps to protect your property without being an asshole. Their response, or lack thereof, will then be a building block in your case should it come to that.

Remember, civil court is usually just a judge and that judge may react somewhat differently if it is clear you are a jerk. While it is true that they may have to rule in your favor even if you are a jerk, they are unlikely to make it easy on you. There are many things judges can to to move things along that are at their discretion.

Treat every communication for violation as it it was going to be entered into evidence, but remember, court costs money and (more importantly) time. You are much better off if you are getting violators to comply without taking it to that level.

They can sue if they've been damaged. There's less opportunity for an end-user to get damaged; they aren't damaged by the infractor's copyright violation. They could be damaged, for instance, if they needed to make modification to the source, but the vendor wouldn't release it.

The end-user doesn't have an agreement with the vendor. The GPL isn't in force, because the vendor obviously didn't accept it (otherwise the vendor would have complied with it). It's a simple copyright violation, and someone who doesn't own the code can't sue for copyright violation.

If you have an agreement with your distributor that says you get source, you have standing to sue. The GPL is not such an agreement - that agreement is between the copyright holder and the distributor, or the copyright holder and you, but not you and the distributor. You have no standing to sue based on an agreement between him and HIS supplier.

To be fair, I would say that most people working in open-source software think that patents on ANY software are bullshit. They simply ignore them. Patents on software are immoral, as is locking up your source code, so both are eschewed by most free software developers. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's wrong, and just because it's wrong doesn't mean that it's illegal.

Software patents (and other forms of stupid patents) are not morality issues. It is just stupid policy to allow dumb patents. It does not further innovation and in fact just wastes people's time and energy. There are plenty of ways to argue against these bad patents, but claiming they are immoral is a stretch and just causes people to dismiss the issue.

The same can be said of deciding whether to release the source code to a program or not. If I write a piece of software, what I do with it is my business

The GPL has a patent clause because the intent was to build an ecosystem of patent-free (or freely redistributable) software. Software patents suck, but simply ignoring them just pushes the problem farther down the line.

The result is a bunch of pseudo-free software that can only be legally distributed in some vaguely unspecified countries in "Europe" where software patents aren't enforced. And that causes problems for end users and distros because it's not exactly cle

AFAIK its pretty much only the US, Australia, Japan and South Korea that considers those patents valid, the rest of the world doesn't. (The vaguely unspecified countries in europe would be all EU members AFAIK)

Ofcourse those countries are important enough to make it a problem, but personally i don't mind just ignoring the patents and simply not distribute anything to those countries, (If anyone wants to distribute software in the US he can hire a lawyer, i'd rather not care though)

I've been involved in an open source project (FreeBSD) for a long time. There have been a number of complaints about GPL violations in the past. These complaints are usually made in private. That helps a lot. Often times the compaints are wrong (The GPL code that was alleged to have been taken and improperly included in FreeBSD turned out to have been taken from BSD 4.4lite and incorporated into the GPL code was the worst example). There have also been cases where the same code appeared in drivers in multiple places. Again, that wasn't a GPL violation because both places took the code from a common data sheet. Sometimes supposed violations are cleaned up out of an abundance of caution: it isn't clear the code is improperly included, but the code in question is easy to rewrite and/or icky to start with.

There are also times where GPL code is improperly imported code from BSD as well. Even when these are found it isn't always worth it to complain. Sometimes the gain from complaining is so small that it is easier to just let the folks use the code and not worry too much about it. Sometimes having the code out there and improperly licensed is better than getting it removed from the code base.

In general, I've found that most people that aren't lawyers don't know the law or the provenance of the code very well. By complaining in private, you get a chance to learn a bit about both. You also give people a chance to make it right. With large open source projects, the chances for accidental mistakes are high. The projects are generally keen to avoid the mistakes in the first place, and even keener on making sure that they get ironed out after the facts. Turns out most companies have a similar view and will do the right thing when asked (but sometimes it takes a little time, which is OK: the GPL never said instantly on demand).

Of course, this begs the question about the validity of the License to use GPL software after a violation has occurred, the scope to which license is lost, how to get it back, etc. GPLv2 is silent on the issue, while GPLv3 gives you one shot to fix it (but that's likely insufficient for large companies that have multiple product lines done by disjoint sets of people all of whom aren't educated on the finer points of incorporating GPL software into their products).

Under GPLv2, if you violate the terms, you lose the license, meaning that you can no longer copy or modify the work at all, and there is nothing in the GPL (v2) itself to get the license back. However, the copyright holder can forgive the violation and reinstate the license.

Likewise, under GPLv3 the copyright holder can give you additional shots to get the license back.

It's important to remember that the copyright holder's powers go beyond the terms. This does create problems for projects with hundreds

open source project have violations [...] calling a library that isn't GNU compatible.

I take it by "GNU compatible" you mean GPL compatible?

Or were you suggesting that calling a library which can't be used on the GNU OS (with, of course, the wonderful microkernel Hurd) will bring forth the wrath of the Holy Warrior Stallman who will then be forced to swing with his katana[1][2]?;-)

Oddly enough most companies even the Evil Microsoft will much rather fix the problem without having to fight it legally, and resolve the problem civilly. When you pre-poster aggressive towards your opponent they will do the same. And if you are Not for Profit organization and you opponent is a big multi-national company, you are going to be in for a big fight where if you were just to be polite and civil about it chances are you will get your objectives, they will quietly fix their problems and save face.

Don't forget, there might not be a problem in the first place. If you are looking around, and see someone else's GPL code in a proprietary product, make sure you find the original owner and talk to them before you go around shouting at the hill tops how evil the proprietary company is.

It is entirely possible that the code was appropriately licensed by the original owner. Just because something is GPL, does not mean that it can not also be licensed for a specific user, usually for money. Think Quake.

Even if the project itself is not licensed for their use, maybe whoever wrote that part of the project re-licensed their contribution to a proprietary company.

It's not really surprising that going to court and going public are really last resort sort of things. Court is expensive, and most people considering them to be a "roll of the dice". Actually negotiating with your counterparty in a contract dispute is always cheaper and more productive.

Going public, even after going to court, also sours the atmosphere, creating emotional contention that makes an actual agreement less likely. Look at out-of-court settlements with undisclosed terms and no party admitting fault. Once you get out of the public light, you can get people to sit down and discuss and actually come to a mutual agreement since the emotions have been toned down. If you're all fury and anger, you're not really in a position to negotiate someone into a corrective action.

Yes, because they were living in the corporate dreamland of lawless cooperation until these open-source thugs just started asserting ownership of code.

Sometimes things can be honest mistakes and warning are nice, but other things are obvious and treating them like a mistake just gives the infringing person a victim role to play and by forgiving everything they did doesn't change their future behavior in the slightest.

Imagine shoplifting. You leave a store and they catch up with you and say "Hi, you MIGHT ha

a) If you want to use an FSF license at all, use the LGPL version 2. Don't use any version 3 FSF license. Apart from anything else, doing so just makes them feel justified in creating bad licenses. (Which their 3 series are)

b) If you're going to use GPL code at all, make sure it's not something you intend to modify yourself.

c) Use other licenses (BSD, MIT, etc) as much as possible. In terms of non-GPL licensed code for you to use, the BSDs are

GPLv3 is actually more forgiving than GPLv2 of accidental violations. GPLv2 says that you forfeit the license and you need the copyright holder to reinstate it. GPLv3 provides a mechanism to correct the violation and have your permissions automatically reinstated.
If you're producing a product that does DRM, you'll need to avoid GPLv3.

In terms of non-GPL licensed code for you to use, the BSDs are free for the taking, and with the BSD license, you get to decide how much of your modifications (if any) you release. Their code quality is nearly always better than Linux anywayz.

BSD cannot be trusted to be completely 'free' as the person above claims. I have come across numerous BSD licensed sourcecode that has the following clause:

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the fo

"Don't use any version 3 FSF license." Unless you don't like the idea that someone can patent the idea implemented in your code and then sue you for using your code...

Nobody cares.

"If you're not using GPL licensed code, there is no way that you can be responsible for GPL violations." But if you're using non-GPL licensed code you could be responsible for non-GPL violations. You can also be done for patent violations.

The you post a few licences you can use without giving back! If you are not giving back that points to code under a license that doesn't enforce it being worse.

a) Reciprocity paranoia is the sole justification for the GPL's existence.b) People who actually write code don't have either the time or the mental focus for reciprocity paranoia. They're too busy.

Armchair "advocates," (even including Stallman himself, here) have the time to be obsessive about whether or not other people are, "giving back," because they're not spending their time doing anything more genuinely useful.

The BSD license, as mentioned, does not legally enforce, "giving back." If it's true, as

In U.S. culture at least, we have little notion of how to let the "other side" save face. Saving face, or not 100% embarrassing folks when they've obviously messed up, is critically important in many negotiations, both exactly political, and locally among friends. The old adage "it's not what you say, it's how you say it," still rings true. People aren't stupid, and most would rather not be insinuated as such. People do, however, make mistakes, either semi-intentionally, unknowingly. (Analogous to driv

Ridicule gets you VERY far. You just need to know when to wave that big stick, and use it after trying other methods, and failing. Public humiliation should most certainly be a tool to get someone to do something. If you're ashamed of doing something, you shouldn't be doing it.

A business is worthless. Like a dream. It's what you do with it that makes it worthwhile. Employing people is good, but the mob employs people and is bad.

If their business has to break laws to make money, how useful is it to the community?

If you think about it, they probably have a negative value. Sure, they're doing X and have customers lined up, but by breaking the law they've got an unfair advantage over legitimate businesses (ones who pay/acknowledge the creators of their library code thereby funding fu

1) GPL software is not very profitable.2) The GPL is only enforceable in civil court.3) Those who use GPL software aren't the people violators sell to.4) GPL software lacks civil and legal representation.

Who would feel threatened under these conditions?

To sue, one must prove damages. Record companies use the CD MSRP * copies made formula which is very effective. $0 times anything is zero. And the 2 developers who write code i

Damages are for a court to decide. To be sure, EULAs and licenses may contain boilerplate specifying violation penalties but it doesn't necessarily follow that they can be enforced. One of the design goals of the GPL is to be valid in as many jurisdictions as possible. Including a damages cause would weaken that. It may be contrary to it's designers' strategies as well. Both the SFLC and FSF have said that most GPL violations are resolved quietly.

The GPL does have teeth, but as Eben Moglen himself observed, that is not primarily due to the legal system.

GPL violation is primarily punishable not by law, but by the members of the cult themselves.

Violate the GPL, and be public about it, and whether you end up in court or not, you will be issued with death threats. You will be subjected to vigilantism and harassment of all kinds. You will likely be subjected to "hacktivism," involving the types of pranks that Anonymous have been known to engage in.

It's not an End User License Agreement. It's a license to copy and distribute a copyrighted work.

Very different animal.

And it's not take-it-or-leave-it, either. If the work has an identifiable set of authors you can attempt to negotiate a non-GPL alternate license with them. (This will usually involve giving them some money and terms that don't screw up their FOSS-licensed product.) Some projects have such licenses as a standard of

GPL is about forcing future software to also be free. Not using it doesn't rob anyone of anything.

GPL is about forcing future software that uses on GPLed code to also be free. You don't want to be held by the GPL? Then don't use GPLed code. Is it really that difficult?

Got GPLed code in your project by accident? Then you didn't do due diligence properly. Your fault, not the GPL's fault.

Got GPLed code in your project by no fault of your own (bad contractor, used a library or other source that itself broke GPL, or some such reason)? That does sometimes happen and here you need to discuss it with the owner of the affected code.

You don't want to be held by the GPL? Then don't use GPLed code. Is it really that difficult?

Yes, sometimes. Here's a concrete example. I library that I wrote uses libavcodec. My library is MIT licensed, and someone who uses my library also uses an Apache licensed library (I can't remember it's name; something for parsing MPEG-4 atoms) and released his code under the BSD license. Libavcodec is normally LGPL, so this is fine. Unfortunately, there are half a dozen or so optional files in libavcodec (e.g. some MMX optimisations) that are GPL'd. Some distributions include these in their binary ve

"You don't want to be held by the GPL? Then don't use GPLed code. Is it really that difficult?"

Yes, sometimes. Here's a concrete example. I library that I wrote uses libavcodec. My library is MIT licensed, and someone who uses my library also uses an Apache licensed library (I can't remember it's name; something for parsing MPEG-4 atoms) and released his code under the BSD license. Libavcodec is normally LGPL, so this is fine. Unfortunately, there are half a dozen or so optional files in libavcodec (e.g. so

You're missing the point. The question was whether it is hard to avoid GPL'd code. I did not use any GPL'd code when writing my library. The person writing an application using it did not use any GPL'd code. The person creating the package for Debian was unable to do so because of the GPL. Now, I'm fine with Debian not carrying this code. I don't use Debian, and there aren't many Debian users whose opinions I care about. I don't lose anything. Only Debian users (and maybe users of a few other system

BSD and MIT, yes. Apache, no. The GPLv3 has a specific exemption for the clauses in the Apache license that are not compatible with the GPLv2. You can not use GPLv2 code and Apache Licensed code in the same project.

Not as cut-and-dried as you might think. First, it is not just modifying that is a problem, it is linking with. Here is a real example. My company developed a fairly large system for internal use, which linked to some GPL components. This system contains some trade secrets. All perfectly legal under the GPL, and not evil. Several years go by, and the company decides to contract out some work. This contracted work means the contractor needs a copy of this software: extremely big problem. Because of t

Meh, GPL does not qualify as "free" to me. There are strings attached that do not allow you to do anything you like with the code. If someone wants to use my code in a closed source project, I really don't care. My code is still out there for others to use.

You may choose to define "free" however you like (this is an acknowledged problem with the term), however when the context is free software, the Free Software Definition [wikipedia.org] is fairly well established.

run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)

study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1)

redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)

improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3)

Really? Damn. It is pretty fresh TBH, might need some refinement - probability of.95 maybe. I'll count the posts in this discussion but am on a phone right now.
Anyway you should look into BSD. It really is very good and "free" as in "I don't give a fuck what you do with the code", you'll probably like it. Just do us a favour and drop the GPL baiting.

What freedom are end users losing if a company includes public domain code in their software? Please provide realistic and practical examples that prove you've thought about the concept longer than 15 milliseconds.

They lose the freedom to tinker with what would have been open, whatever it was that the company theoretically closed.

So you think that if a company uses a public domain component, it's *no longer* in the public domain? Or what are you saying here-- it makes no sense to me. How can a company "close" something that's already been put into the public domain?

If that's the component they're struggling to fix it could be all-important.

If it's a large product, and the one component that's busted is in the public

Imagine FTP for instance. It's available, open, and people use it. So someone like MS implements FTP, but closes the source.

Even if they did go and get FTP source and compile it, it wouldn't work without a ton of tweaking, so they're out the ability to tweak their OS.

Oh sure, the people who are already uber-coders don't lose. But the users who might have been coders had they had more source available to look at, they lose. As does everyone they could have helped. Not any source helps here, just the source t

No one is stopping you from playing with the code. If you fork an open-source project and close that source, the original still exists. If the closed one gets improvements that make the open one look quaint, certainly there are more than enough uber-coders to reverse engineer the changes and add them back into the public domain.

I am certain you could have learned to program by reading a different set of source code had the one that you read not been available. Certainly there will always be open-source p

Ever consider that the latest and greatest feature in the latest and greatest, multi-million unit shipping product may be using code you developed?

Ever wanted to maybe boost your pay by jumping to a new company, based on that?

Tough shit. They don't have to say you had anything to do with it. They can just collect the bounty and laugh all the way to the bank. They might have a toast in your name for being a baffoon. Hell, they can even say they developed it themselves, as long as they can read what you've

How many people know that GPL software powers their routers? Linksys and others could call the Linux Kernel developers and everyone else whose software powers their consumer devices "baffoons" for letting them get away with it. The GPL doesn't protect you from "exploitation."

The GPL protects you only is you use it to defend yourself.So if they are using GPL code without acknowledging the author & GPL status of the code then they are opening themselves up for a case against them.

How many people know that GPL software powers their HDTV? You'll be suprised how many Digital HDTV these days contain GPL code.

>They don't have to say you had anything to do with it. They can just collect the bounty and laugh all the way to the bank.
I'd assume that anyone who puts their code in the public domain doesn't really give a crap who does what with it. It's not like your code is somehow magical and no one else could ever have come up with it. At best you're just saving someone else some time.

Hell, they can even say they developed it themselves, as long as they can read what you've coded.

Not true, actually. That would be plagiarism, which is entirely different to using someone else's code. It's the difference between quoting someone in a paper you wrote, and claiming that you were the originator of the quote. It falls under the "Moral Rights" clauses of copyright law, and beyond that under almost any ethics system and human decency.

Note that, while moral rights are quite well-protected in the EU, US Federal copyright law does not recognise the concept. In some states there is quite broad protection, for example in California and in others, such as New York, it only pertains to certain forms of copyright works.

But if the source isn't visible they aren't claiming your source is theirs, just that the product is theirs. Microsoft claims Windows is theirs despite the theoretical heritage of the FTP client, for example.

But if the source isn't visible they aren't claiming your source is theirs, just that the product is theirs. Microsoft claims Windows is theirs despite the theoretical heritage of the FTP client, for example.

So, how is licensing under the GPL going to stop dishonest pricks from being dishonest pricks? Douchey people are going to do that anyway, regardless of what license you choose (if any). But the point is that most humans regard plagiarism as a much more serious offense than mere copyright infringement. Most people see copying something to use for yourself as a more-or-less acceptable desire. But lying and claiming credit for something that somebody else did, is a pretty serious sin.

May I advance a humble proposal that any post along the lines of "GPL is better than BSDL" or "BSDL is better than GPL" is modded Flamebait and/or Troll on sight? Personally, I'm sick of these endless and pointless fights over nothing, where arguments boil down to who is "more free", with either side persisting in the claim that their definition of "free" is the One and Only True Free.

Seconded here. I've been listening to the "debates" for years and years and haven't heard anything new from either side in so long I can't remember. Lets just short-circuit the whole thing here: BSD fans want to legalize slavery and murder, and GPL fans want to set up communist dictatorships and destroy the world's economy. As long as someone can "prove" that I'm evil no matter which one I support, I figure I might as well go whole-hog and be totally evil by supporting both, each in their own place. Ia!

It's really a silly argument. The BSD license does have fewer restrictions, but that doesn't make it better than the other. I think people need to understand that the two licenses have different goals in mind, and developers need to respect the wishes of the rights holder. Likewise, developers should take care in what license they use.

My guess is that the BSD license's intent was to simply give credit where credit was due and to allow researchers to develop code for anyone to use, in proprietary or open sou

But if you hate the GPL and FSF, you might not want to use the BSD license. They can use your code too.;)

Add a fourth clause.

"While re-licensing is, in every other case, entirely permissible, (including proprietary closed-source licenses) re-issuing code governed by this license, in whole or in part, in source or binary form, including derivative works, under any license issued by the Free Software Foundation, is expressly prohibited."

Indeed. People should chose thier license they way they choose a screwdriver, not they way they choose a religion. GPL serves some goals better, BSD servers other goals better. Clarify your goals, and choose the license that best serves them.

It's very incomplete. Part of the story is how the WineX developers and such promised that they would contribute work on DX to Wine, which is discussed in detail on the mailing lists. This lead to a huge amount of developer stagnation in the area as everyone was just waiting on the "patches" that would bring all this new functionality.

Ah yes, another one of these stories. Expect to see some references to M$, people defending GPL and people advocating BSD. All in all, everyone will agree that respecting open source licenses is very important. Next thread, something about RIAA, same people demanding their right to download copyrighted music.

Pathetic.

Result of proper GPL usage: More software for the public to use.

Result of copyright abuse: Less content in the public domain.

One is about the world that is, the other is about the world that should be. What's pathetic is the lack of understanding you have of the people you're criticizing.

Do not conflate the GPL with the public domain. If there is a copyright in force, it is not in the public domain. It is in the public's reach, and if they follow the rules of the license they can use it, but it is not in the public domain. The public domain is the forgotten side of the copyright bargain, that [i]for limited times[/i] the authors can impose rules on the use of their works. By the way, in most countries, one can simply declare that they grant their own works to the public domain, as a gif

Ah yes, another one of these stories. Expect to see some references to M$, people defending GPL and people advocating BSD. All in all, everyone will agree that respecting open source licenses is very important. Next thread, something about RIAA, same people demanding their right to download copyrighted music.

Pathetic.

Truthfully, the only people who care about copyright in either case, are those who are afflicted with scarcity thinking...which is all too frequent, sadly.

The most i get from it is "If you distribute the Binderys, you must distribute the source code"

That's why I distribute the source code on loose sheets of paper. Binding is just too expensive these days.

Not to mention that binding non-LGPL GPLed libraries with your code and then distributing it puts your code under the GPL. So don't glue your listings to a GPLed library book and let somebody else check it out.